JAPANESE MINKA XXXIV - PLANNING 2: SINGLE-SPACE DWELLINGS 2

There is a transitional or intermediate minka plan-form between the completely unpartitioned single-space dwelling, exemplified by the Ainu chise, and dwellings that are partitioned with full-height, fixed interior walls. In this intermediate form, low, moveable partitions were used to mark out corners and perimeter areas of the interior for activities such as sleeping, eating, receiving guests, and cooking.

An example of this type of interior, shown below, can (or could) be found in the foothills of Mt Hakusan (Hakusan-roku 白山麓) in Ishikawa Prefecture. This A-frame construction (mata-date 股建て) farmer’s hut (dezukuri-koya 出作り小屋) has, like the chise, a single-space interior and an earthen-floored entry/utility space (doma 土間) or ‘ante-room’ (zenshitsu-doma 前室土間, lit. ‘front room doma’). Though this particular example is large for its type, it nevertheless demonstrates that these single-space dezukuri-koya dwellings differ little from chise in the way the various domestic activities are arranged within their open-plan interiors.

 

Floor plan of a reed thatch-walled (kaya-kabe 茅壁) A-frame construction (mata-tate-zukuri 股建て造り) single-space farmer’s ‘hut’ in the Mt Hakusan foothills. To the east (bottom) is the earth-floored ante-room (zenshitsu-doma 前室土間) containing the entry (iriguchi 入口) a basin (mizu-bune 水舟) fed by a bamboo pipe (かけひ), and a toilet (benjo 便所). This doma area was used for food storage (shokubutsu-chozо̄ 植物貯蔵), tool storage (dо̄gu-okiba 道具置場) and as a place of work (sagyо̄ba 作業場). Beyond the doma is the earth-floored (doza 土座) eating (shokuji 食事食事) and ‘family’ (danran 団らん) area, spread with mats (mushiro-shiki 莚敷). This area contains the fire pit (irori 地炉) around which the family positions are marked: husband (shujin 主人), wife (shufu 主婦), children (ko 子), guests (kyaku 客). There are two windows (mado まど) in the south wall. Also labelled are shelves (todanaとだな and nabedana 鍋棚), mortar (usu うす), and bundled straw (maki-wara 薪藁). At the rear of the interior is the ground joist (korobashi-neda 転ばし根太) and plank floor (ita-yuka 板床) family sleeping area (kazoku-shinjo 家族寝所), also used for food drying (shokubutsu kansо̄ 植物乾燥) and storage (iiiri? 飯入). In the back (west) wall is the Buddhist alcove (butsuma 仏間). There is also a ladder (hashigo はしご) up into the roof space (yane-ura 屋根裏). On the left (north) wall can be seen the sleeping area (shinjo 寝所) for the wife (shufu 主婦) and infants (yо̄ji 幼児), partitioned off with a 60cm high ‘fence’ (kakoi 囲い).

 

The medieval farmhouse minka of the remoter areas of the Tо̄hoku and Hokuriku regions of northern Japan are also said to have had some resemblance to chise in their interior layouts. Northern Japan (Hokkaidо̄ and northern Honshū) were, until historical times, occupied not by the Japanese but by the Jо̄mon-descended Ezo or Emishi (both written 蝦夷) people. The Emishi were gradually either absorbed or pushed further and further north by the Yayoi (弥生) agriculturalists who came to Honshū from the Korean peninsular from 300 BC, until by modern times only the Ainu of Hokkaidо̄ remained. The Ainu are generally thought to have descended, like the Emishi, from tribes of the Jōmon (縄文) people, and so the two groups are closely related, though not necessarily identical.

The similarities between Ainu (and presumably Emishi) chise and Japanese dezukuri-koya raise the question of who influenced who. Given that there was close contact and admixture between Yayoi-descended and Jо̄mon-descended groups over many centuries, the answer is probably complex and bi-directional. There was probably also a degree of convergent evolution between the respective groups’ dwellings, with the two groups existing under similar material, environmental (climactic) and even cultural conditions.

The ‘living’ part of the dezukuri-koya interior adjacent to the entrance is a ‘ground-living’ (doza-sumai 土座住まい) area, with the earth floor at ground level (hira-chi jūkyo平地住居) rather than sunken as was the case in more ancient dwellings. Further back is a ground joist (korobashi-neda 転ばし根太) and plank (ita 板) floored family sleeping area; at the very back is a recessed alcove for the Buddhist altar (butsuma 仏間).

Adjacent to the north wall is a kind of ‘pen’ area, formed with a 60cm high partition similar to makura-byо̄bu (枕屏風), the low screens still occasionally used today to give some privacy and draft protection to sleepers. The enclosure is roughly three tatami mats in area and is the sleeping place for a nursing mother and her infants. This arrangement suggests that in the development of the single-space dwelling into a partitioned interior, the first area to be separated off from the rest may have been the wife’s sleeping area. A hypothetical formal partitioning along these lines would result in a plan-form that could be regarded as a ‘front doma’ (mae-doma 前土間) subtype of the three room hiroma-gata (広間型) plan-form, common in the Hokuriku region.

A gabled, gable-entry, thatched A-frame farmer’s hut in Yamagata Prefecture, similar to the one shown in the floor plan above, but smaller and without an ante-room. The A-frame is somewhat bowed, giving the structure a ‘kamaboko (浦鉾, fish cake)’ form (kata 型). The entrance is simply closed off with a mat. The hut is roughly 10 tatami in area, about 30m2. It is located in remote mountain fields, so would have only been occupied in summer.

The interior of another farmer’s hut in the foothills of Mt Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture (not the same hut as those above). To the rear of the fire pit is the yokoza (横座), the seating place for the husband; beyond that is the sleeping area with various items related to this activity. At the right edge of the fire pit is the wife’s seating area; beside this is an area for firewood, food and other cooking-related items. The photograph is taken from the entrance.

 

JAPANESE MINKA XXXIII - PLANNING 1: SINGLE-SPACE DWELLINGS 1

After a long detour into framing and other structural aspects of minka, I would like to return to the subject of minka planning and layouts, but this time in more detail, with a focus on the development of minka from primitive single-space dwellings into the sophisticated and complex plan forms that had emerged by the 19th century, each with its own regional subtypes.

‘Single-space dwelling’ refers here to a dwelling whose interior consists of a single undifferentiated space; it may be either entirely raised-floor or entirely earthen-floored. These dwellings are to be distinguished from dwellings that contain both a raised-floor area (room) and an attached earthen-floored doma utility area, which we will call ‘single-room dwellings’, to be covered in later posts.

It is thought that the earliest Japanese dwellings, whether raised or earthen floored, were all single-space dwellings, without fixed internal walls. But even if a dwelling’s interior is spatially unified, there is naturally an order to the way the space is occupied and used: livestock and agricultural implements are kept near the entrance, the innermost recesses are spread with straw and used as sleeping places, and so on. The solidification of these relatively fluid modes of living eventually led to the appearance of interior partitions, which over centuries of development brought us to the partitioning of space seen today.

A good example of fairly large-scale single-space dwellings that survived in Japan until relatively recently are the chise* (チセ) of the Ainu people of Hokkaidо̄.

An old photograph of a chise.

In the chise, each interior corner and other areas are functionally and nominally distinguished, just as the rooms of a modern house are. The corners spaces of the chise are: the south-west harukisoshikeu (ハルキソシケウ), the south-east sо̄keshi (ソーケシ), the north-east sо̄pa (ソーパ), and the north-west shisoshikeu (シソシケウ). Each of these areas was used for a different purpose.

The harukisoshikeu, the south-west corner of the chise interior near the entrance, is the ‘kitchen’ area, or in Japanese daidokoro (台所). The area immediately east of the harukisoshikeu, adjacent to the central section of the south wall, is the sleeping area (shinjo 寝所) for family members other than the husband and wife.

The south-east corner, the sо̄keshi, was normally kept vacant, as it was the sleeping area for staying guests.

The east wall was a sacred area, used for religious ceremonies and observances, and contains a window called kamuy-buyara (カムイブヤラ) or rorun-buyara (ロルンブヤラ), in Japanese kami-mado (神窓, lit. ‘spirit window’). The Ainu word for spirit is kamuy (カムイ), which may be the etymological origin of the Japanese kami, but the two terms differ somewhat in sense. The kamuy-buyara was used for passing offerings through; looking through it was not permitted.

The north-east corner, the sо̄pa, corresponds to the ki-mon (鬼門, lit. ‘demon gate’) direction in Onmyōdō (陰陽道), the Japanese esoteric cosmology based on Chinese Wuxing (the five elements or agents) and Yin Yang. In these systems, ki-mon (north-east) is a negative and unfavourable direction by which demons and ghosts are believed to enter and exit. Perhaps partly as a defense against these evil spirits, the walls of the sо̄pa are lined with religious objects, and it is not used as a living or sleeping area.

The central north section of the chise is the sleeping place of the husband, and the area adjacent to the north wall is where his belongings are kept. Likewise, the north-west corner or shisoshikeu is where the wife sleeps and keeps her belongings. The space between the husband and wife’s storage areas was used to hang the traditional Ainu atsushi (アツシ), the robes made with the inner bark of the elm tree.

Floor plan of a chise. Labelled are:

The ante-room (semu セム) with its entrance (semapa セマパ)

The inner entry area (ape アぺ), fire area (apeoi アぺオイ), and around it the husband and wife’s area (shiso シソ) , guest area (rorunso ロルンソ) , family area (harukiso ハルキソ) , and lower sitting position (usara ウサラ, perhaps for casual ‘dropover’ visitors or those of lower status)

The south-west corner (harukisoshikeu ハルキソシケウ) with kitchen (daidokoro 台所) area and kitchen window (pon-buyara ポンブヤラ)

The family sleeping area (kazoku no shinjo 家族の寝所)

The south-east corner (sо̄keshi ソーケシ), the guest area, and guest window (itsumun-buyara イツムンブヤラ)

The ‘spirit window’ (kami-mado 神窓 or kamuy-buyara カムイブヤラ)

The north-east corner (sо̄pa ソーパ) with religious or ceremonial items (saigu 祭具)

Sleeping area (shinjo 寝所) for the husband (shujin 主人) and storage area for his items (dо̄gu 道具)

Sleeping area (shinjo 寝所) for the wife (shufu 主婦) and storage area for her items (dо̄gu 道具)

Area for hanging clothes (irui-kake 衣類掛け)

Floor plan of a chise by Isabella Bird, 1878

Reconstructed chise in a museum with the south wall removed to reveal the interior.

Interior of an Ainu chise looking from the harukiso (the south-west position at the fire pit) to the sо̄pa (north-east corner) with its array of religious or ceremonial items. The walls are lined with toma (トマ) mats woven from kina (キナ) (bullrush or cattail, in Japanese kama or kaba 蒲). The wall beams (keta 桁) are hung with woven ropes known as chisesamupe (チセサムぺ). In the foreground, standing in the corner of the fire pit, is an inunpesaoshipe (イヌンペサオシぺ), an artificial ‘flower’ made from wood shavings (in Japanese kezuri-bana 削り花, lit. ‘shaved flower’) analogous to the zig-zag paper nusa (幣) used in Japanese Shintо̄ ceremonies.

Interior of a chise showing fire pit with chisesamupe (チセサムぺ) and inunpesaoshipe (イヌンペサオシぺ), and toma (トマ) mats lining the walls.

Chise were usually constructed on an east-west long axis, facing south, and were typically four bays long and three bays wide. Buildings larger than this were called porochise (ポロチセ), and smaller ones ponchise (ポンチセ). An ‘ante-room’ called the semu (セム) projected out from the west side of the main structure; the entrance to the dwelling was in the south wall of the semu. In early chise there was no semu; instead, entry was directly into the main dwelling from the west, through an entrance known as the ape (アぺ), an arrangement that would have been less than ideal in the cold winters of the north. In addition to serving as an effective windbreak and snowbreak, the semu was also used for the storage of agricultural tools, the preparation and storage of food, the storage of food preparation items such as mortars and pestles, and as a place for work on rainy days.

Modern reconstruction of a chise. This is the south facade, showing the entry opening in the semu and two small windows in the southern wall.

The ‘living’ floor of the chise consists of woven rush mats (goza, 茣蓙) spread on planks and joists, specifically korobashi-neda (転ばし根太, lit. ‘fallen joists’), which are joists placed directly on the ground without stumps. Older chise interiors were entirely ‘ground living’ (doza-sumai 土座住まい) dwellings, without joist floors, though mats or straw would have been spread directly on the ground in most of the interior.

As the fireplace was relatively centrally located in the chise, it can be surmised that a hypothetical partitioning of the space would result in the Japanese minka plan-form known as hiroma-gata (広間型).

* Note that all Ainu words here are transliterations from the Japanese katakana renderings, which are not perfectly faithful to the native Ainu pronunciation.

 

VERNACULAR PICTURES 19

A beautifully detailed minka facade with curved posts on pad stones, bark cladding, board-and-batten cladding, latticed openings, rope-fixed purlins and rafters, and thatched roofs.

 

JAPANESE MINKA XXXII - ROOF FRAMING 10: NOBORI-BARI FRAMING

When floors are inserted into the roof space of minka so that the space can be utilised, whether for sericulture (as in the gasshо̄-zukuri framed minka discussed in previous posts) or some other purpose, the low, triangular edges of the space formed, where the roof plane meets the floor, are impractical for anything other than storage of relatively small items. To address this inefficiency, the transverse roof beams (koya-bari 小屋梁) can be set into the posts at a level significantly lower than the longitudinal wall beams (keta 桁), to give the attic storey walls; additionally, obstructive roof posts (tsuka 束) are omitted wherever possible, and may be entirely absent. These two characteristics are what define nobori-bari-gumi (登り梁組, lit. ‘rising beam framing’), which is the subject of this week’s post, the final entry in this ten-part series on minka roof framing methods.

In nobori-bari (登り梁) framing, the transverse roof beams are tenoned into the faces of the posts, while the nobori-bari sit on the heads of the posts, in an ori-oki (折置) configuration, in which the mortised beam ends are dropped onto vertical tenons on the post heads and the wall plates are lapped over the beams.

Nobori-bari framing in a board/plank-roofed minka in the Tо̄hoku region. This roof space was used for sericulture and other purposes.

Nobori-bari are functionally similar to the principal rafters (sasu 叉首) of sasu-gumi (叉首組) framing, but are true beams, being far stouter and usually made from irregularly shaped pine logs, minimally worked. They support the purlins (moya 母屋) on which the common rafters (taruki 棰 or 垂木) ride. At the apex, the nobori-bari may bear on a large longitudinal beam (ji-mune 地棟) which is supported by a central roof post (shin-zuka 真束) or muna-mochi-bashira 棟持柱). Again, like the sasu in sasu-gumi construction, the nobori-bari pairs are often crossed (with a tenoned, through-mortised and pegged joint) at the apex, forming a crotch in which the ridgepole (muna-gi 棟木) is carried. The moya may sit directly on the nobori-bari, or on very short posts or stumps (tsuka 束) to make up for height differences in the irregularly-shaped beams.

One interesting variation in nobori-bari framing is the use of brackets or ‘shelf’ timbers (makura-gi 枕木, lit. ‘pillow timber’) at the eaves. The lower end of the nobori-bari sits in the corner formed between the makura-gi and the post. The exterior part of the makura-gi may serve double duty as an ude-gi (腕木, lit. ‘arm timber’) to support the external ‘verandah’ beam (keta 桁); ideally, the loads acting at each end of the makura-gi on either side of the post balance each other out.

Magnificent nobori-bari in the tsushi-nikai (厨子二階, an upper ‘half floor’ with low walls/ceiling and little headroom) of a tile-roofed merchant’s house (shou-ka 商家, a combined house/shop where the merchant both lived and did business) in Kurashiki City (倉敷市). Note the makura-gi (枕木) which serve also as the exterior eaves-supporting ude-gi (腕木); note also that the purlins (moya 母屋) bear directly on the nobori-bari at the irregularly-shaped beams’ ‘peaks’, and on short ‘adjustment’ stumps (tsuka 束) at the beams’ ‘valleys’.

A new house showing the (ude-gi 腕木) supporting the verandah beam (keta 桁) which in turn supports the rafters (taruki 垂木).

Examples of nobori-bari framing in the Kantо̄ region.